Removing Excess Glue

Pretty much all of Mattel's current doll lines use a type of glue that seeps out of the dolls head, making it tacky to the touch. To help combat this I take out as much glue as possible before filling the head with baby powder. For this tutorial I'm using Frights, Camera, Action: Black Carpet Lagoona Blue. A very sticky doll indeed.

Step 1: Remove the head. I run the dolls neck under some hot water to prevent messing up the neck joint. This is one of my more successful attempts, no visible white spots that show strain on the plastic; and the flappy hooks are still intact.

Step 2: Gather supplies. You're going to want to find a surface that you don't mind getting dirty or sticky. This is a messy process. I typically use needle nose pliers to pry out glue and keep baby powder on hand to keep my hands sticky-free.

Before I begin, here's a glimpse of how stringy the glue has made poor Lagoona's hair. Seeing this is helpful in identifying potential problems as well. Seriously, I can spot glue-head almost anywhere now.

Step 3: Squish the head! I start off the glue removal process by sqeezing the sides of the dolls head to loosen the glue up. You can sort of see some of the glue at the top of the hole. I then use the pliers to pull out chunks of glue until all that's left is the glue holding hair in.

Step 4: Keep pulling it out. The glue that you pull out should look something like this. Sometimes the glue varies in color and level of stickiness. This kind right here is probably the second most sticky. I'll have to make a chart someday. Notice that no hair is attached to this chunk. You want to strive for that so you don't pull hair plugs out.

Ever so often this will happen. You see a big chunk of glue and you try to pull it out, but uh-oh it brings hair out with it. What I do is cut off some of the glue attached to the hair. But be sure to leave enough glue on the hair so that you don't pull it out while brushing. Or when you pull the plug(s) back out. See that snarled/tangled section I drew an arrow by? After you remove some of the glue off these plugs, you're going to gently tug on the tangled sections on the outside to put them back. Yank too hard and you'll end up pulling out the hair, so please be careful.

Step 5: Pour the powder in.

After I'm satisfied with my glue removing I prep the head for the baby powder. This doll in particular doesn't have earrings but dolls that do will definitely need them put back in before you pour in the baby powder (otherwise it will come out the ear holes. hilarious but also devastating lol). After that I find something to funnel in baby powder. I normally just fill it up until I can see it, but in some cases I fill the heads as much as I can if the glue is really sticky.

Step 6: Clean up. Afer I reattach the doll head onto the body I place the doll upside-down on its stand to keep the baby powder up at the top to stop the seepage from happening again. I've had mixed results in the past, but about 60%-70% of them never have issues after this process. Then I clean my workspace. To clean the pliers I rub baby powder on it to remove any residue. Any glue on the table gets brushed into a garbage can along with any baby powder that may have spilled onto it.

The next tutorial I do will be about rooting eyelashes on dolls that don't have them. Should be exciting! Thanks for reading and I hope this helps anyone that reads this.